Sharon Salzberg Quotes

Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don't take your thoughts too seriously.

Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

However, I began meditating at about that time and have continued on and off over the years.

I'm also good at meditation. It involves doing nothing and everything at the same time.

I think to say that meditation is helpful to artists is true and it's great, but it's also essentially helpful to any kind of process of, just, life.

The next time you have a thought... let it go.

Reductionism and elimination make one feel clever, but what happens when the meditator drops her fixation on feeling clever?

If you don't do yoga, it doesn't mean that you can't have a sense of detachment, which means not attaching yourself to your thoughts or your emotions.

The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.

Meditation is not contemplation because it is not thinking at all - consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise - the traffic in the head. So many thoughts - trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

Through yoga, meditation and other spiritual practices, we can learn the ways of personal equanimity. We can also learn how to use language in beneficial ways.

What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?

Meditation is offering your genuine presence to yourself in every moment.

Meditation is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty-climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things. But nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful.

The practice of meditation is a way of continuing one's confusion, chaos, aggression, and passion—but working with it, seeing it from the enlightened point of view.

Meditation can be like a battle with yourself, your thoughts, your body.

Being still may sound a little crazy to some, but I really encourage people to simply listen to your own breath and unclog all those thoughts running through your mind. It's important to take a step back.

Meditation is key. It's a crazy world we live in. Everything is happening so fast in our world, so to take a moment and clear the mind and just be totally present is so healing. I want to meditate more.

I firmly believe that if we all just took a little time - like 10 or 15 minutes a day - to do nothing but sit calmly with our thoughts, this world would be a much better place.

When you quiet your mind, you can enter a world of clarity, peace and understanding.

Not that I'm any good at it, but the beauty of meditation is that it liberates us from our own thoughts.

Every few months, I would take off to the U.S., which had people wondering why I went away so often. My trips were always to meet my spiritual guru, Maaji, who is based in the U.S. I would always come back with clear mind and sure footing.